Wallingford Neighborhood Greenway update

Things may be rolling along, but it’s not too late to get involved in Wallingford’s Neighborhood Greenway project! In fact, there’s a citywide meetup potluck this Wednesday, September 14 at 6:30pm at the Mosaic Coffeehouse (4401 2nd Avenue, behind Dick’s). This is an opportunity to meet with Neigborhood Greenway organizers across Seattle and learn more about neighborhood greenways. Representatives from Ballard, Beacon Hill, Wallingford, and the U District will be there to share plans, best practices and issues. Plus, Frederica Merrell of Beacon BIKES will present tips on organizing and success stories for community organizing, and Seattle City Council Member Sally Bagshaw will reflect on political organizing. Here’s the invite on Facebook.

Our thanks go to Cathy Tuttle for providing us with an update of what’s happening with Wallingford’s Neighborhood Greenway:

The first phase Wallingford Greenway will be completed by November 2011

The greenway will go from Thakeray to Burke along 44th, cut down at Burke to 43rd, and go from Burke to cross Stone at 43rd. Later phases as well as north south greenway connections will require more community/SDOT discussion.

The greenway budget is around $110,000 for just under 1 mile of greenway. At least half of that funding will be used to get across Stone (with a traffic island) and to replace concrete panels of degraded roadway.

During a meeting with SDOT last week, the Wallingford Neighborhood Greenway group discussed several items including signage, parking, traffic calming devices, and outreach:

Confirming signs that say “Neighborhood Greenway” with a graphic will be placed in 18-20 locations. (design tbd)

“Wayfinding” blade signs pointing to the greenway or to adjacent destinations and neighborhoods will be placed at strategic locations (tbd)

SDOT will confirm that each traffic circle has signs next to traffic circles that by code, limit parking within 20 feet. SDOT will re-evaluate parking on the east side of many streets between 44th and 45th to include more parking and incidentally provide additional traffic calming

At each traffic circle, a chevron with a bike much like the “sharrow” chevron will be painted on the road to the east and west of the circle. considerable discussion took place about how to engineer control around traffic circles in the N-S direction by signage, stop signs, green paint, community gardens, speed cushions, prioritized bike/ped signs, diverters or other means.

There was clear consensus on the part of SDOT that traffic circles themselves were an adequate traffic control device to prioritize pedestrian and bicycle traffic and just as clear a consensus on the part of the community that a way to prioritize pedestrians and bicycles along the greenway over north-south traffic merited more consideration.

Outreach about the project will be to all houses along the greenway, and to a catchment area near the Stone Way crossing will be contacted by door hangers soon

If you do want to be involved in our neighborhood’s greenway project, please contact Cathy Tuttle: [email protected]

8 Comments

Among the multitude of thoughts I have on this topic, I would like to suggest that outreach efforts to residents and users of the residential streets of 43rd and 42nd Streets is absolutely requisite. All the streets south of 45th in Wallingford will experience huge increases in use as 45th Street evolves into a predominently transit route, and even more when the new 520 ramps are complete and streets just north of the lake become impossibly congested for parts of the day. Reducing E-W auto access on one street has just as much impact on all the others.

The parking impact should be made crystal clear to neighborhood residents in all outreach. Seattle is prioritizing increased housing density because it makes sense, we live blocks away from a huge and growing university and soon, a light rail station. While we wish most of those new residents didn’t have cars, that’s not realistic thinking. Parking on 44th will go away within 30′ of each of those new stop signs at the N-S intersections. Increasing parking to both sides of narrow adjacent streets might achieve ‘parking neutrality’, but at the cost of the ability to drive cars on them. Just where will all those new tenants and owners park their vehicles?

A transit-prioritized 45th Street seems a much better target for bicycle priority to me.

I have nothing against creating a bicycle friendly route off of 45th, I still wonder when the city and the bicycling community are going to do something about the absolutely horrible road habits of many bicyclists. Although we hear much more about mistakes made by drivers of autos versus bikes (because of the usually worse consequences), my experience in Wallingford is that a far greater number of bicyclists ignore traffic laws, i.e. yielding to pedestrians and oncoming traffic, speeding and weaving trhough traffic, jumping on and off sidewalks when convenient, blasting through unmarked intersections. If we are going to allow bicyclists all the right of those in motorized vehicles on the roads, then bicyclists should have to abide by the same laws & regulations – including licensing, insurance, etc.

Well, it’s great to know that Seattle has such a surplus of funds that it can go forward with this project. And when we have to call 911 because a crime is in progress, and the officer on the phone says that the police will not respond because of budget cuts, we can think about how much better off we are because we have a pretty path for that minority of residents who use bicycles and demand special treatment.

Wow, is it “Complainers’ Day” on this thread? I live right next to the new greenway, and I drive AND bike in the area all the time. I think it’s a fantastic idea, and I look forward to more ideas to keep N-S cars from blasting through the greenway on side streets, which my personal experience leads me to believe will continue to be a problem.

Frivolous spending in a time of budget crisis is worth complaining about.

Cost issues aside, the “Neighborhood Geenway” should simply be called “Neighborhood Bike Path”, because that’s what it is. It will provide no benefit to pedestrians, who will continue to use sidewalks. The design isn’t even a straight path; it snakes through narrow residential streets, which will be confusing for everyone who wants to travel on it or cross it.

I can see the value of putting a car-free (and I mean truly car-free) boulevard in a shopping area or along a waterfront. But the design of this project just seems forced–and I think it will create more of a hazard than a benefit. Time will tell.

On Wallyhood, every day is “Complainers’ Day”. I for one am totally looking forward to this. With all of the stop signs along 44th Street, I’ll be able to race home from Dicks (in my Suburban) at 45 mph. No more cold Delux and warm milkshake for me!

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This community blog is all volunteer run, and we welcome articles from everyone in the Wallingford community. Something on your mind? Have a story to share? Please contact us at [email protected] today!

Editors rotate weekly. This week’s editor is Ben Robinson.

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